


That Sinking Feeling

by Missy



Category: The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
Genre: Action/Adventure, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Western
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 10:17:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2847434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Socrates wins a town in a poker game, and the gang quickly learns that abandoned town is anything but.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Sinking Feeling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertScribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertScribe/gifts).



“Boys, I have a venture for you.”

Brisco and Bowler’s eyes met over the table. “Not interested,” they said simultaneously, going back to studying their hands of cards.

Socrates’ features faltered for only a second before he pressed on. “Maybe you will be when I tell you I won a deed in a poker game last night.”

“Now that’s interesting,” Bowler said. “You actually winning a hand of poker.”

Brisco poked his elbow. “Aww, Bowler, quit it. You’re gonna hurt his feelings.” It was said with sincerity enough, and as he turned toward Socrates he said, “where’s this deed?”

With great ceremony, Socrates unrolled the paper and proudly showed it to Brisco and Bowler both in the same gesture. “Four hundred acres, complete with a small town.”

Brisco scanned the document and instantly piped up, “Soc, this says the town’s in Salt Flats!”

“Is there something wrong with Salt Flats?” asked Socrates, his smile dimming by a few watts.

“Only that it’s stuck flat dab in the middle of a sink hole,” said Bowler. “Everyone who lived there moved out a few years ago.”

“Oh…oh no,” Soc said, his lips turning white.

“Now, don’t get upset,” urged Brisco. “It’s probably just some kind of clerical error. We’ll ride out tomorrow and check out the place, see what’s around. If push comes to shove you can always sell it off.”

“Brisco, who’s going to buy a town that’s resting in the middle of a sinkhole?”

“Somebody with great character and fine taste,” Brisco said.

He fondly slapped Soc’s back, trying to keep the mood properly light – and his friend didn’t protest the gesture.

*** 

The following day’s ride was around four hours long and took them straight through the desert. By the time they spotted the white clapboard buildings on the horizon, Socrates wanted nothing but a long drink of cold water. 

Brisco shoved a canteen in his hand and somehow he managed to swallow down a gulp before Brisco took it back. The white roofs were getting much closer, as was the picket fence bordering the town. Brisco called for the horses to halt right at the city’s outer limits. 

The streets were deserted. Only sagebrush tumbled down the empty but whitewashed streets. The place hadn’t been looted, which was a positive sign, but a peep into any random window revealed empty shelves and barren rooms; only the hotels and restaurants still had tables and beds that were made and dusty but unused. They’d all fled as soon as word had spread, but the land under their horses’ feet didn’t feel loose, slanted or uneven; it was as if they were walking on packed dirt instead of loose powder.

“Whatever’s really wrong with this place, the terrain isn’t it,” said Brisco. “We should do a full check around, make sure we don’t have any stowaway types.”

“I don’t like the looks of this,” Bowler said. 

“I don’t like it much myself, but as long as that place isn’t sinking Soc’s still got a chance to profit off it.” He clicked his tongue, urging Comet to pull around the back. He hitched the horse, then urged Soc to do the same. “You go north, I’ll go west, and Soc will go east,” he told Bowler. “We’ll meet back here a few hours before noon, make camp and leave in the morning.”

“All right,” said Bowler. “But if I end up neck-deep in some sand I know who I’m gonna blame.” He pulled his own horse around. 

“Soc?” Brisco asked.

“I just wanted to buy a nice strip of land for my retirement,” said Socrates.

“Heck, I know you didn’t mean any harm,” Brisco said. “Just holler if you hear anything.”

With that, Soc pulled toward the sunlight and headed to the furthest point Brisco had indicated.

*** 

It didn’t take much searching for Brisco to find something suspicious; in this case it was an open cellar door in the town’s Presbyterian church. He found a lantern hanging, extinguished, just near the cellar door; lighting it, he carefully headed down the steps. 

One look around told him that the space was definitely being used for more than storing religious relics. Empty cans of beans were strewn around the dirt floor, and there was an unmade bedroll nearby. Ergo, he said to himself, somebody must be using the town. The question was, who?

That was his last thought as he stepped through a sinkhole into the ground and fell, flailing, into the darkness.

***

Socrates had done just as Brisco had suggested. Peering from room to empty room in the town’s sole hotel, he saw nothing and found nothing. 

At least the ground was still solid. Tapping each slat in the boardwalk as he moved along, he tried to figure out if any of the steps ahead. Reaching the end of the boardwalk, Soc sat down, sighing, resting on a nearby bench. 

“The foundations of this place had better be made of gold,” grumbled Socrates. He took off his hat and fanned his flaming face. And it was then, under the bright sunlight, that he heard a footfall – and saw a black-shrouded shape approaching. “Oh no, it’s you again” were the last words Soc managed to get out before the gun’s butt collided with the back of his head.

*** 

Bowler glowered as he finished his appointed rounds. Only Brisco would think that a place like this would be worth anything. “Next time we investigate a ghost town it’s gonna have a whole candy factory in it,” he glowered. He took a right around the last building, the empty-seeming and abandoned church.

That was when he heard a familiar voice echoing from its bowels.

*** 

“Rita Avnet,” muttered Socrates. He’d woken up trussed in a basement, his hands and legs pinned down with ropes. And with a wild-eyed redhead hanging over his head.

“Did you miss me, Socrates?” she asked. 

He tugged at his bonds. “How can I miss you when the police keep taking you away– and when you do you come back to kill me?” 

“Aww, don’t be jealous.” She clicked her red nail against the trigger. “There’s nobody in the world I’d rather kill but you.” 

“What are you doing here, Rita?” asked Socrates. 

“The real question is what are you doing here?” she wondered. “If anyone’s trespassing here, it’s you.”

“That’s highly outrageous! I won the deed to this town fair and square!”

“Fair and square. That’s you in a nutshell,” she rolled her eyes. “I’ve been using this place as my hideout for years. Soon as I saw it I knew it’d be a prime place to hide my platinum.”

“Platinum?”

She grinned. “Been trying to go straight, Socrates. The platinum trade’s going through the roof soon, mark my words. And when it does, I’m gonna take my loot and dynamite this place so there isn’t any evidence left behind.”

“You call that going straight?”

“Straight-ish,” she shrugged. “Don’t let it concern you any, Socrates. Soon you won’t have enough of a mind to worry about it.”

Socrates shouted after Rita, but the other woman settled down in a chair an inch across from his struggling body. That set Bowler’s mind to racing – he’d have to rescue Socrates pronto if his friend were going to see the morning light.

Rushing toward Brisco’s chosen sector, Bowler realized that he just might be their group’s only hope for survival.

*** 

The man Bowler sought, meanwhile, woke up when an ice-cold bucket of water was poured over his head. He yelled at the sudden agony, pushing back his soaking wet hair. Through the curtain of it he saw six knees. No – seven. 

His eyes flew upward, resting on several faces. The man at the center, who sported a long, white beard, said, “Who are you, and what has brought you here?”

Brisco automatically went into a defensive pose. “I don’t mean any harm. My friend won the deed to this town in a poker game, and we rode out to check on it.” 

He shook his head. “This land has belonged to the people of Santa Clarita and its native families for as long as there have been cactus in the desert. Someone gave your friend a community, and that just ain’t right, just ‘cause there’s only five of us left don’t mean we ain’t a community.”

“Hush, Jeb,” she said.”It ain’t this fella’s fault we were fooled by that lady.”

“I’m speakin’ my piece, Elizabeth! For once and all!”

“Lady?” Brisco asked.

“That Avnet woman,” snapped Jeb. “She promised she’d help get the rail road in – got us all out of our houses and got us drunk on wine. Then she woke us up – at gunpoint. Told us all that she’s got our guns and wired the whole town with explosives. Then she stuck us down here. Comes by and drops off food every few days, then walks off.”

“I know her,” said Brisco. “And I think I know a way to get rid of her,” his eyes darted toward the narrow windows lining the boxlike room. He saw an oaken table and climbed up on it, his fingers reaching for the edge,.

Jeb interrupted his motion. “We’ve already tried those. She’s wired the windows up to something in the well,” he said. “Probably dynamite.” 

It took Brisco a minute to trace the wire to its origin point but he found it – the hinged opening. He stared at the long, thin wire – it was thin, strong-looking…almost like platinum. Hmm. “Does anybody have a diamond ring?”

“I do,” said Elizabeth. She was precise and careful as she placed the ring in Brisco’s palm. 

He bit his tongue, concentrating hard, wearing the wire away with grit and determination.

“Can we do anything for ya?” Jeb asked.

Brisco worked as he spoke. “Yeah, hide behind something heavy and if I don’t make it tell my horse I loved him.”

*** 

Bowler was the one who set off the first tripwire – which, thankfully, was attached to a small shed near the livery. Throwing himself on his belly, Bowler protected his head and prayed for his spine until the dust cleared – then he got up and ran, much more carefully, toward the southern end of town. Brisco was nowhere – Comet was still tied to his hitch. 

“C’mon, boy,” said Browler, untying the horse. “If you help me find Brisco, I’ll get you a bushel of apples.” The horse didn’t budge. “TWO bushels?” he suggested. Nothing. “ALL RIGHT,” growled Bowler. “THREE bushels.”

The horse started tugging his lead, locomoting toward the church. 

***   
In its basement, Brisco sweated over the line, fretting and hoping and wishing over that line. Just as it snapped the attic door squeaked open…revealing a horse.

Elizabeth’s scream made Brisco’s final slice especially perilous, but it was still a slice he made. 

“Brisco?” Bowler yelled from the doorway.

“Bowler”!

“What the hell…” he started.

“Tell you later. Let’s get these people to safety. Rita’s running wild, I think…”

“…She has Soc,” said Bowler. 

“Suspicion confirmed, let’s go!”

“Wait! Don’t you wanna make a plan?”

“I would,” called Brisco. “if there were time!”

**** 

They found city hall – and found Socrates by looking through the front window. Rita was sleeping, via some miracle – curled right up by the furnace. The principle of the matter would be figuring out how Rita got in and out of the building and use the same route. 

That was when Bowler’s inner tracker got to work. The pattern of mud-spattered leaves and footprints lead to a blind back door that seemed not to be a door at all. Brisco dusted it over for prints. 

“Learned how to do this in Harvard,” said Brisco. “Now how do we get the door open?”  
Bowler shrugged and kicked the door in. “We learned how to do that in the cavalry,” Bowler drawled, as Brisco crawled through the darkness, down to flights, until they reached the basement door. 

Socrates looked panicked as they quietly pried the gag from his mouth. Brisco pantomimed the plan – they’d exit the way they came in. It would’ve gone flawlessly, had Brisco not tripped over a wire and blown a hole in the bank four feet over.

The explosion left their ears ringing. “HOW DID WE SEARCH THIS WHOLE PLACE WITHOUT FINDING ANY OF THESE ‘TIL NOW?” Brisco yelled, swinging about to get the drop on Rita before she could clear the sleep from her eyes and aim her gun.   
“JUST OUR LUCK, BRISCO,” yelled Bowler. 

“I’M GONNA GO CALL THE FEDERAL MARSHALL,” yelled Socrates, and stumbled his way to freedom.

*** 

Two hours later, the smoke had cleared and Rita was hauled off by the feds. Sitting on the steps of the church, the whole town came out to thank Brisco and wish him well on his way.

Jeb stepped forward. “The platinum you found in that basement’s going to do great things for this town. Why, we might even be able to convince people to join us.”

“Where will you start?” Brisco asked.

“Hiring somebody to clear the rest of these dang tripwires,” said Jed.

“Well, I wish you all the luck in the world,” Brisco said, tipping his hat.

“Sure you guys don’t want to stick around a little while longer?” asked Jeb. “We’ll always have a warm bed for y’all.”

“You could even be mayor,” Elizabeth offered. “Not like we’ve got any real leaders ‘round here.”

“No offense, folks,” said Socrates, “but I don’t think I’m brave enough to guide you. But at least now you’re free! Or…you will be when you find all of the dynamite.”

“We do appreciate the offer,” Brisco said, “but I the coming thing’s calling. See you all around.”

They turned the horses, trotted out of town and into the sunlight. 

*** 

A few miles up the trail, Bowler spoke up, “at least you didn’t get ‘em all killed, Poole.”

“Yes,” Socrates observed. “I suppose that’s an improvement.”

“Aww, why the long face?” Brisco asked.

“Well, I sort of liked that town…what little I saw of it. Maybe someday I’ll come back and settle in over there, if they ever want a mayor.”

“As wise and calm as you are, you would’ve been a great one,” Brisco said sincerely.

Bowler shrugged. “You couldn’t be worse than their last mayor.”

“Who was that?” asked Socrates.

“Sparkles the Wonder Pony,” said Bowler.


End file.
